Bronwyn Scott - One Night With The Major

She leaned backwards again and began the undulation, this time balancing the sword on her hip. Cam held his breath, torn between warning her how sharp the blade was and remaining silent for fear that speaking out would ruin her concentration. Miraculously, the sword lay steady. She became a dervish, then, taking the sword in hand and whirling about, a swirl of colours and veils in time to the music. When the music slowed and the whirlwind abated, his sword was balanced atop of her head. The room was alive now, the crowd clapping to the rhythm of her movements and the music; all of it pushing him towards a decision. Save her from the mob, or leave her to her self-imposed fate. He’d not come down here looking for adventure but it seemed adventure had found him anyway.

She turned a fast circle, the sword never slipping from her head and Cam made up his mind. Perhaps his mind had already been made up the moment their eyes had met. Her circle stopped. He rose and held out his hand. Good lord, he didn’t even know if she spoke English. This was madness. But he couldn’t leave her here when it was clear she had no idea of how much danger she might be in from men who might not hesitate to strip those veils from her, who might decide to make a plaything of her for their own amusement, who might not ascribe to the idea that a person was a person no matter the colour of their skin. There were too many ‘mights’ for his taste. Too much to leave to chance.

She dipped him an English curtsy, returned his sword and without a word let him lead her up the stairs. How did this happen to him? How did he find himself in the most unwanted circumstances? This was not an adventure he would have sought for himself. He was probably the only soldier in the British army who didn’t want to be back on English soil. Balaclava had been a bloodbath and he’d been the one to live to tell about it, a prospect so daunting, he couldn’t sleep at night—he still woke up screaming about it. But here he was—back in England and with one more responsibility to carry out when all he wanted was to be back with his troops and a life he understood, a life that pleased him.

At the top of the stairs, he ushered her into his chamber and shut the heavy oak door behind them. Cam leaned his head against the door frame, closing his eyes for a moment of clarity, savouring the coolness of the wood against his brow. Good lord, he had an exotic dancer in his room. His grandfather would die if he knew. Exotic dancers were not part of his grandfather’s plan for him.

Aside from the pleasure that came with the thought of niggling at his grandfather’s limited sensibilities, this was not how Cam had expected the evening to go. He’d gone down to the taproom in the hopes of forgetting everything, to put off his duty one more day. He could have easily ridden on to London tonight before dark, but that would have meant facing his grandfather, playing the returning war hero and the doting suitor to Caroline Beaufort, his intended, a young woman selected by his grandfather as worthy of a Lithgow with her exquisite looks and immaculate pedigree, but a woman who engendered nothing more than polite interest from him.

It was no wonder he loved soldiering. It was full of the adventures he thrived on—new places, new people, new tasks—where there was little time to spend worrying over the delicate concerns of etiquette, while life here in London spread before him like a vast empty wasteland full of useless occupations. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite an empty wasteland just yet. There was still the dancer to deal with. He needed to make it clear to her that she had his protection, that nothing else would occur in this chamber tonight. Despite what his body might have argued, he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too fixed on the things he’d have to do tomorrow, like telling the Duke of Cowden his son, Cam’s own best friend, Fortis Tresham, wasn’t coming back.

Cam turned from the door, ready to make his pronouncement, and his mouth went dry. His dancer stood before him beautifully naked, her discarded veils at her feet, a tanned goddess come to life with high, bold breasts and a gentle hand over her shy nether pelt, a delicious contradiction of seduction and innocence. Had he really been about to refuse her? His body’s reaction laughed at the prospect, but his conscience pricked. How dare he think of pleasure when Fortis was dead.

He strode towards her, purposefully shrugging out of his coat and draping it about her. ‘You needn’t offer yourself to me. You are safe here.’ The coat was big, effectively hiding her, but it did nothing to dampen his response. With her face revealed, she fulfilled the promise of beauty: wide eyes, a full mouth, a delicate jaw that created a heart-shaped face and hinted at English antecedents.

‘Do you not want me?’ She sloughed off his coat, naked once more, her hands cupping her breasts, lifting them for his inspection.

‘It’s not that.’ Cam was uncharacteristically at a loss for words, he who shouted orders over the chaos of a battlefield. ‘It’s just that you don’t need to feel obliged.’ He’d never taken a woman to bed who felt obligated to be there and he wasn’t going to start now.

She moved towards him, reaching for the stock about his neck and tugging it free, determined to undress him. ‘And if I don’t feel obliged ? Would you want me then?’ She smelled like adventure, all citrus and spice, a fragrance of the Far East, a fragrance of happier times, when he and Fortis had served two years for the Crown in India.

Cam swallowed hard. He was starting to lose this fight and maybe he should lose it. Maybe bedding her would help in some way with the grief he carried, a first step back towards living. No, that was ludicrous. He was simply justifying things now to please his body. He put his hands atop hers, stopping them where they worked the buttons of his uniform’s waistcoat. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your name.’ He knew only that she was Indian and English, and beautiful.

She pressed a long, slim finger to his lips. ‘No names. It’s best that way, don’t you think?’ He didn’t think. He was starting to not think at all.

‘Let me help you.’ Her voice was soft, soothing, entirely at odds with the excited turmoil inside her. She’d got him this far, upstairs and into his room. But he’d done nothing to undress himself, so she’d do it for him.

He forgot to restrain her hands this time when she worked the buttons free. She pressed her advantage, slight as it was. ‘You came to the tavern to forget something tonight. I saw it in your face out there.’ She slid the waistcoat over his shoulders, down his arms and tossed it aside as if she undressed men every night. Pavia pulled his shirttails loose, praying at some point, he would take over. She would soon be in over her head despite whatever theoretical knowledge she had gleaned growing up in her uncle’s zenana, but even that was scarce little. She had not been in India since she was twelve. ‘You are hurting.’ Her hand stopped over his heart. ‘In here. I’ve seen men like you before.’

She had his shirt off him in moments, her hands pressed against his chest. She appealed to whatever sense of fair play he might possess—a trade. ‘You helped me down there tonight, now I will help you forget whatever it is that’s on your mind.’ She raised up on her tiptoes and took his mouth in a soft kiss. ‘Then, in the morning, we will be even. All debts between us paid.’ Such a bargain should appeal to a military man.

Under her mouth, he gave a harsh chuckle. ‘I will never be able to wipe my slate clean again.’

Ah, so she’d been right about the demons. Leave it to her luck to seduce the one man who didn’t have seduction on his mind. She twined her arms about his neck. She’d come too far to give up now. ‘Then erase it just for tonight.’ She whispered the temptation. ‘There is comfort here, free for the taking.’